MEDIA CENTER

Mission Expressed

From: Texas Architect Magazine, March 2007 issue
by Stephen Sharpe

March 2007 - The unique mission of the Harte Research Institute for Gulf of Mexico Studies takes singular expression in its new headquarters on the campus of Texas A&M University - Corpus Christi. Located just a few miles from the Gulf, the perpetually windswept site is protected from the open sea by Mustang Island, the slender barrier island that buffers the South Texas coastline. Nature is omnipresent, its latent energy palpable in the salty breeze, its mysterious beauty pervasive but veiled by waves and sand. Considering the HRI's locale and purpose, there is little surprise that Richter Architects found inspiration for the design of the 57,000-sf facility in the surrounding marine environment.

Allusions to the Institute's purpose - the comprehensive study of the Gulf - materialize in obvious and subtle ways. A series of metal canopies resemble a school of fish swimming toward the entry. Walls three stories tall appear to twist as they enfold a monumental staircase like a giant upended clam shell. The stairwell's shimmering interior of bluish glass tile resembles seashell nacre. These images reflect both the organic and the technological aspects of marine biology, and the building rewards close inspection with moments of discovery that suggest the revelations of scientific research. "From a metaphorical point of view, we liked the idea of a building that is in one sense high-tech and precise but is countered with the more organic and expressive," says David Richter, FAIA, who designs with his partner/wife Elizabeth Chu Richter, FAIA, for the design that has intrigued their clients and challenged the project's contractors. The Richters' firm worked on the project in association with Houston-based Watkins Hamilton Ross Architects.

The new HRI headquarters, opened in November 2005 (although construction continued through early this year), reveals itself incrementally. The approach from the north along Ocean Drive from downtown Corpus Christi follows the gently curving bayside boulevard to Ward Island, home of the "island university," at the point where estuarial Oso Bay flows into Corpus Christi Bay. Positioned as the gateway landmark to the campus, the HRI makes an immediate impression with its gleaming exterior of buff brick and glass rising three stories above tenacious, weather-beaten turf. The site offers an almost ideal orientation for the north-side elevation to look out toward Corpus Christi Bay while sustaining minimal impact from the withering effects of the South Texas sun.

The Richters took every advantage of the site to design a building that benefits from abundant natural light while maintaining an overall energy efficiency by limiting openings on the southern and western elevations. "In any project you have to be inspired by the site, especially a site as good as this one," David Richter, said in an interview with a campus publication. "But you also must have environmental sensitivity aside from just responding to the site. The building must be well tuned to the sun, wind, and other elements."

The building's envelope of buff brick corresponds with the campus' standard exterior material palette. Initially developed in the 1950s and '60s as the University of Corpus Christi, the campus' original buildings are small boxes configured to create shaded courtyards for protection against the elements. In 1993 the school officially became part of the Texas A&M System. The Richters credit TAMU-CC President Dr. Robert R. Furgason with asking architects to push the aesthetic boundaries when designing new buildings for the growing campus. (Furgason now serves as director of the Harte Research Institute.) The Richters took the challenge and decided to use the campus' ubiquitous off-white brick "and use it in an extraordinary and expressive way," Elizabeth Chu Richter says.

The bulk of HRI's laboratories and administrative support offices is contained within a long, narrow three-story tower set on an east-west axis. Executive office suites are located at one end of the top floor. At ground level other programmed spaces are aligned on a northeast-southwest axis, with seawater labs at the back of the building near the loading dock and public spaces spread out at the front to allow views of Corpus Christi Bay.

Seen along its narrow eastern elevation the building appears as a solid three-story wall of masonry from which a series of four tall glass boxes step out toward the north, each box projecting further than the one before. This stepped tactic gradually increases the depth of the building as the northern face of the sequential boxes grows wider as they march across the building's broad bayside frontage, while also admitting morning light into conference rooms and offices. To mediate the intended exposure to direct sunlight, the architects designed sunshades that were ultimately omitted from the project.

Along the north facade, large windows at the top two levels bathe the open-plan offices with soft, indirect sunlight. The open workspace allows more people to share the daylight and views of the bay, an egalitarian approach that encourages collaboration and exchange among colleagues. The architects devised a strategy to extend perimeter daylight as deep as possible into the building through the combination of reflective metal ceiling panels, suspended light shelves, and a series of transoms along the corridor wall. The corridors serve as the circulation spine that runs the length of the building on each level, effectively bisecting it between office side and lab side. Laboratories are more opaque along their side of the corridor yet their interiors also gain sufficient natural light from strategically placed south-side windows shielded by thin, stainless steel exterior eyebrows above each opening. Taking into account the solar orientation and the lab setting, the windows, at slightly larger than three-feet square, appear as a generous gesture to the scientists and students who probably are accustomed to working under less favorable conditions.

While the workspaces are designed to be more than merely functional and comfortable for those conducting research there, the architects also were driven to create a building that sends a message to the general public. "The building becomes a symbol of the mission to the public. It does that by being an expressive building and by having public spaces to convey that mission to the public," says David Richter. The symbolic aspects of the building's design, he adds, were specifically intended to further HRI's goals to direct in governmental policy in regards to the ecosystems of the Gulf of Mexico. To that end, the Richters' wanted their design to attract visitors to the HRI so the non-sci-entists among the general public would understand the objectives of the Institute's research. "You can't affect policy without public support," David Richter says. "I wanted people to feel intrigued by the building and feel that it is beautiful," Elizabeth Chu Richter adds. "We wanted to design a building that people want to go into and learn more about."

To understand HRI's mission themselves, the Richters attended a meeting of the Institute's trinational advisory council in 2003 as the architects were just beginning the design phase. Elizabeth Chu Richter took notes, jotting down terms that surfaced as key reference points in the discussions. Her list included phrases that spoke to the Institute's outreach goals, such as "excite the public," "imagine," and "inspire public interest," along with other words keyed to scientific exploration and understanding the Gulf's ecosystems. When they left that meeting, the architects were excited at the prospect of designing a landmark building to further the HRI's cause, as David Richter says, "that was up to the task that the Institute wants to accomplish."

-- Stephen Sharpe is editor of Texas Architect.